


From What I’ve Tasted Of Desire

by arjache



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arjache/pseuds/arjache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought you said you’d gone hiking before!” she says, head turned to grin at you, yet somehow miraculously not running into anything.</p><p>“Backpacking in the Adirondacks when I was a child. Not quite the same. And I hardly remember it.”</p><p>“Well, we’ll just have to be sure to make this memorable, then,” Jade says with a wink, and turns to face forward again. After another minute, she stops, and you pull up beside her shortly afterwards.</p><p>“Rose, look,” Jade says in a hushed tone, pointing ahead.</p><p>---</p><p>A romance forged in tropical heat, and solidified in northern cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [graveExcitement (arachnids)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnids/gifts).



> In response to the prompt: “I’d love to see some Jade/Rose fluff, with them comforting each other; Sburb is rather traumatic, after all! The two of them cuddling up and sleeping together would be especially nice. Whether or not you’d like to add in some sloppy makeouts is your choice!”

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you are re-checking the contents of your backpack for what is, by your count, the fourth time this morning.

“Water filter, first aid kit, mosquito netting…are you sure this is everything? I can’t tell if we’re bringing too much or too little.”

“Rose, stop worrying! I used to do this all the time, and if we really need anything I can just teleport us back here to get it!” Jade exclaims, shrugging her way into her own pack. “This is going to be so much fun.”

You’ve been planning this camping trip for a while now, ever since you’d won the game and were rewarded with an eerie facsimile of the world you’d left behind. Jade had been wanting to show you all her favorite spots and old stomping grounds. Scheduling proved to be the biggest difficulty. The two of you were both attending school on the US mainland now - you in pre-med with an emphasis on psychiatry, and she in Physics and Astronomy - and that kept the two of you so busy that it was difficult to find a time when you were both available.

It helped that Jade could just teleport the two of you over when the rare opportunity did present itself, mind you. Such as this winter break. And where better to spend winter break than in the Southern Hemisphere?

You shoulder your backpack and check the straps one last time, and then the two of you step out of the house and survey the sprawling wilderness in the distance. The sun shines brightly overheard, and you are suddenly very grateful for the ridiculously large, floppy hat and thin jacket you wore to protect your delicate skin. Jade has no such qualms, and is wearing hardly anything at all, her dark brown figure framed only by a bikini top, shorts, and hiking shoes. Not that you’re inclined to complain, you think, eyes lingering on her curves.

Making your way past the confines of the residential compound, you crest a slight incline. Stretched out below you is a lush, green valley, the land relatively clear for a few miles before it thickens into jungle.

Jade giggles. “Last one there’s a rotten egg! Woof!” she yells, and bounds off down the valley, letting out the occasional yip and looking ecstatically happy.

“Jade! No!” you yell in return, running downhill after her and praying you don’t sprain anything in the process. “Jade! HEEL!”

* * *

You trudge through the thick undergrowth. You have your hiking wands out, and Jade a long, gnarled walking stick, but frankly they’re starting to be more hindrance than help at this point. They keep catching on vines.

You are doing your best not to complain, but the hiking is starting to get the best of you.

“Rose, come on! We’re almost there,” Jade yells back, ahead of you by a dozen paces. She keeps falling behind to sniff at things - her nose probably rivals Terezi’s at this point, you think to yourself - then running ahead again. 

“Thank goodness. I’m starting to fear for my ankles,” you say in response.

“I thought you said you’d gone hiking before!” she says, head turned to grin at you, yet somehow miraculously not running into anything.

“Backpacking in the Adirondacks when I was a child. Not quite the same. And I hardly remember it.”

“Well, we’ll just have to be sure to make this memorable, then,” Jade says with a wink, and turns to face forward again. After another minute, she stops, and you pull up beside her shortly afterwards.

“Rose, look,” Jade says in a hushed tone, pointing ahead.

A beautiful oasis is just ahead of you, a green and blue lagoon sparkling in the sunlight, surrounded by moss-covered rocks. There’s a small waterfall under a rocky outcropping off to one side. The roar of the water makes you feel as if you’ve been transported back home, back to Rainbow Falls or LOLAR. It is the sound you’d craved for three years in the dark, quiet meteor laboratory. The air is full of tiny droplets of water, each one a prism casting rainbows all around you.

You inhale deeply, then turn and see Jade doing the same. She looks at you and smiles, and you take her hands in yours and kiss her on the cheek. She gives you a gentle headbutt in return.

“Was it worth the wait?” she asks you.

“Definitely worth it,” you say.

* * *

You spend the next few hours swimming, exploring, and resting after your long hike. After a splash fight of epic proportions (which is ultimately declared a draw), you haul yourself out of the water and stretch out on a rock. At one point you think to pull out your journal, but instead of doing so you are utterly transfixed by the sight of Jade scampering through the water - can one actually scamper through water? She seems to be managing it, anyway - and chasing after the tiny fish that live in the lagoon. Occasionally she jumps up onto the shore, runs around and barks at the fish, and then cannon-balls back into the water and paddles around some more.

Finally she tires, and, stepping out of the water, walks up to you and takes you by the hand. She silently guides you to a spot just behind the waterfall, a shy grin on her face, and there under the roaring water she kisses you, long and hard, mouth shockingly warm in contrast with the cool water rushing around you.

_[(Click here for high resolution version.)](http://deeness.net/draw/ao3/20121202-waterfall-kiss-hires.png) _

* * *

That night, you sleep under the stars, cuddled together in your sleeping bags which you’d zipped together, not even bothering with a flimsy excuse like trying to conserve warmth - although that was certainly a nice bonus, you think, curled against the blazing furnace that is Jade’s body - but simply doing so for the sake of each other’s company.

You lie there together, looking up at the stars, and Jade points up at the sky, naming every constellation and individual star in sight - which are quite a few, given the utter lack of light pollution. It’s all the more amazing given that half the stars in your new sky aren’t even the same as your old one - but then again, as Jade points out, it’s not exactly difficult to remember such notable constellations as Striderius Major and Striderius Minor, whose swords, in this new world’s history, used to point sailors safely home.

You’re almost asleep when you hear a muffled sob from Jade’s side of the sleeping bag, and then, just before you’ve convinced yourself you must have imagined it, you hear another two in quick succession. You reach out for her then, not sure if you should say anything or not, and she startles at the sudden touch. Suddenly she turns and presses herself against you, crying in great heaving sobs, and now you really have no idea what to say.

After a while she calms, just a little bit, but enough to quietly say, “I just realized that this is the first time I’ve slept here without Bec,” and then it all clicks, and you wrap your arms around her tighter, holding her, steadying her as the next wave of sobs work their way through her. Eventually she continues:

“We used to come out here together. I’d fall asleep against him, like he was some sort of big fluffy white pillow. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and realize he wasn’t there any more, but he was always nearby. Keeping watch. Guarding me. It always made me feel so safe, so loved, knowing that no matter how scared I was, I could just call out for him and he’d be there. Only just now…” she chokes up a little there, and you slowly rub her back, and she lets out a little sigh that nearly breaks your heart in two. “…only now I was almost asleep, and I kind of jerked awake, you know how that happens sometimes? But I woke up and I realized: He’s not here, and he’s not nearby, and he’s not about to come back. He’s gone. He’s gone, Grandpa’s gone…I’m the only one left. I’m all alone.”

You cradle her head against you then, running your fingers through her hair. “You’re not alone, Jade,” you say, and she looks up at you, wary hopefulness in her eyes. You kiss her on the forehead and say, “I’m here, and I’m pretty sure Bec is as well, in a way. He may not be here in person, but his presence is, overwhelmingly.”

Jade rolls her eyes a little at that and scratches at her furry ears, exaggerating the motion to make her point. “Well, yeah.”

“That too,” you reply, smiling. “But that’s not what I meant. He’s here in the way you move, the way you smile. The way you love this place. The way you love life. He lives on in you, Jade, because he was the one who taught you how to be the person you are today. That’s not going away, Jade - and neither am I.”

And at that Jade rests her head on your chest, a still-cautious smile on her lips, and it’s as if her entire body relaxes.

“Thank you,” she whispers to you then, more quietly than you’ve ever heard her before. “I love you, Rose.”

You smile into her hair. “I love you too, Jade,” you whisper back. “Sleep well. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

After Jade falls asleep, you stare up at the stars for a long time, thinking of things lost and things gained, of stability in a life where even the sky itself is no longer a constant. You can feel Jade’s heart beat next to you, and marveling at that, you finally drift off into sleep.


	2. Winter

Your name is Jade Harley, and until now you had no idea just how ridiculously cold Earth winters could be.

Your kinda-sorta-girlfriend (you hope, maybe) sees you stepping cautiously through the snow and laughs at you.

“What?”, you ask indignantly, stomping your boots through a particularly ice-encrusted patch of snow.

“Jade, your planet was covered in snow,” Rose says. “How is this a new thing to you?”

“Well, it wasn’t like this!” you exclaim. “It was all powdery and fluffy, like walking through a cloud. Getting through this stuff takes work. And I’m pretty sure it’s colder here than it was there, too! I think the snow on my planet was just magic or something. I mean, it was cursed not to melt until we got the forge lit, so it’s not like it mattered how warm it was.”

“And yet I remember seeing you all bundled up in winter clothing there. It was adorable.” Rose says, slowly making her back way over to you through the snowdrifts.

“Well, yeah, because it was freaking freezing there! It was like…50F. I think it even dropped down to 44 once. It was cold!”

Rose bowls over with laughter until she sees you frowning petulantly at her, and then she sighs. By the tone it’s clearly meant in jest, a happy warm noise, and you could swear the sound of it makes you feel warmer, too. Before you can stop frowning she’s there in front of you, wrapping her arms around you. She smiles at you, and you smile back, your foreheads against each other, and you’re pretty sure that her warm breath on your face is the best thing ever right now.

And then she kisses you, and you realize that no, _this_ is the best thing ever right now.

Rose still has her arms around you. “It gets very cold here in the winter,” she says. “It’ll probably drop down to the low teens tonight. At least. Sometimes it gets even colder than that. But don’t worry,” she continues, her voice suddenly husky, “I’ll keep you warm.”

You giggle and lick her face. She scrunches up her nose.

“Let’s just play out here for a little while and then we can go inside where it’s warmer, okay?” says Rose.

“Okay,” you acquiesce, still smiling.

* * *

You and Rose were halfway through your brief winter respite from university and your various obligations there, and had decided to split the difference. You would spend half the time at your old island home where you’d spent the first 13 years of your life, and half the time here, in Rainbow Falls, where she’d spent the first 13 years of her life.

You were starting to regret just teleporting the two of you from there to here. The thermal shock alone had almost knocked the breath out of you.

Rose seemed thrilled, though, and that took some of the edge off of the cold for you.

You spend a while building snowbeasts out of the deep drifts. You make a snowdog. Rose makes…actually, you’re not sure what exactly Rose makes, but it sure seems to have a lot of tentacles and other difficult-to-identify appendages.

Rose also shows you how to make snow angels. Yours comes out looking more like a troll, your dog ears leaving a horn-like imprint in the ground.

You’re just getting up from your snow troll when something cold and wet hits your back, and you turn and see Rose standing there, grinning with an almost obscene amount of self-assuredness and lightly hefting another snowball.

You growl and run after her, barking. She yowls at you, sounding almost cat-like in the process, and scampers off.

She scores more hits than you initially, until you figure out how to pack the snowballs tightly enough, and soon the hilly snowfield is a war zone, the two of you darting back and forth, hiding behind trees, dodging each other’s barrage of snowballs. Eventually you just teleport a big heap of snow directly over her head, and at that she screeches and runs full-barrel at you, knocking you over in the process, and the two of you roll down the side of the hill.

She pins you to the ground, her hands pushing down hard on your shoulders, the icy snow biting at your exposed earlobes. “You dirty rotten cheat!” she exclaims, with delight in her eyes.

Your only response is to lick her face again, and then she screeches some more and starts tickling you, and the two of you roll over and over again, play-fighting for dominance, all awkwardly placed elbows and gripping hands and playfully nipping teeth.

But the cold soon gets the better of you, and the two of you stand up and spend a moment there, shivering, admiring your handwork in the snow. It’s the most confusing snow angel yet, like a flat version of Rose’s snowbeast. It looks like it has about 17 limbs. Rose looks so very, very proud. You have to admit, you’re feeling pretty smug yourself right now.

And then it’s off to the warm indoors, because dear lord is it cold outside.

* * *

You’re in the hot tub, drinking hot chocolate. Your hot chocolate in particular has an excessive amount of whipped cream piled on it; it is a tiny tower peering out of the top of the mug, surveying the magical lands below.

You are trying _very hard_ not to spill your hot chocolate in the tub.

Eventually you set your mug aside and cuddle up closer to Rose.

“Did you know,” Rose begins, staring off into the distance, “that I can’t think of a single clever fact to rattle off about saunas?”

“No?”

“Not a one.”

You squish your face against her shoulder. “I don’t think I actually _needed_ to hear clever things about saunas, Rose.”

“Yes, but I was _ready_. I was prepared. I was going to tell you all the clever things. All of them.”

“Mhm,” you mumble noncommittally.

“The extensive, complete history of saunas and related technology, starting in Renaissance Finland. A wondrous journey through history. Details that would blow your mind.”

“Rrrrrr,” you growl.

“How am I supposed to seduce you now? This is the sort of thing that requires careful preparation. Research. Long nights studying and deliberating.”

“Rose,” you say. “I am curled up against you in a hot tub. My face is three inches from your chest. I’m most of the way to naked. Just how much more seducing were you thinking you’d need to do?”

“I don’t know. Another hour at least.”

You growl at her again. “I am going to bite you until you stop talking and start doing.”

Rose grins. “Is that a promise?”

* * *

You run back through the cold to get to the main part of the house. You are not wearing nearly enough for this excursion, and are carrying the rest of your clothes, but Rose insists that it is an essential, exhilarating part of the hot tub experience, taking care to enunciate each word in her alliteration.

You feel plenty exhilarated already, you object, and would have been perfectly happy staying in the hot tub.

“Oh no no no,” Rose says, jogging briskly beside you. “My mo-” she catches herself - “maintenance person would kill me if we - I mean -” she trails off.

That gives you pause for a second, but then you’re at the side door and stepping into the kitchen and oh god you missed the indoors for the 45 seconds you were outside.

It’s at this point that your glasses fog up.

Rose giggles and slides the temporarily-useless glasses off your face, stealing a kiss in the process. You can’t see without them, but she takes you by the hand and gently guides you upstairs to her warm bed, and suddenly seeing becomes a decidedly optional activity.

* * *

You lie in Rose’s bed afterwards, tracing lazy circles on the bare skin of her stomach. You’re completely tangled up in the bedding, and as you lie against her you watch new snow gusting outside her bedroom window.

Rose sees you watching. “It’s going to be a good storm tonight. We might even get snowed in. It takes a lot to do that, here.”

You roll your eyes. “Teleporter, remember?”

“Pfft. Let me have my fantasies of being trapped here with you. Nothing to do but drink hot beverages, watch the snow fall, keep each other warm in various exciting ways…” she says, smiling.

“So, basically, what we’d planned on doing anyway.”

“Yes, but this would be officially sanctioned. It doesn’t count as being lazy if you’re snowed in.”

You snort at that and lightly bonk Rose’s head with a pillow, and the two of you lie there for a while, not saying anything. Eventually you look up at her.

“Keeping busy is important to you, isn’t it?”

“You keep just as busy as I do, Jade.”

“Yeah, because I’m doing neat stuff and I like it! But it’s not like I’d be desperately finding new stuff to do if I weren’t doing the work I am right now. I like what I do, but I also like relaxing and having a good time.”

“I’m having a good time.”

“I know, but…”

“But what?”

You stop for a second, not really sure how to proceed.

“Rose, do you know how many times I’d been back to my island house before we finally got to go there together?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure.”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen times, really?” Rose says, but she’s staring out the window again and you don’t know if she’s just echoing back what you say until you go quiet again.

“Yes, really. Seventeen times in eight months. Sometimes twice in the same week.”

“I guess I’m not really sure where you’re going with this.”

“My point is, how many times have you been back here before now? It doesn’t look very lived-in.”

“It’s a big house. There’s a lot of in to live.”

“Rose! Stop avoiding the question.” you say, groaning.

There’s a pause. “…once?” Rose says, quietly.

That stops you in your tracks. You’d expected two, maybe three times. But one? That’s so specific, so few.

You wonder what happened.

Before you can ask, though, Rose is turning away, wrapping herself up in a blanket.

But she’s still talking.

“It’s a big empty house,” she says, echoing herself, oddly terse. “There’s a lot of empty to fill. And sometimes it crowds me out. Too much empty. Not enough room for the living.”

“Rose, are you -” you begin, but she cuts you off.

“I’m sorry. I thought maybe I could fix it. Bring you here, make some happy memories, you know?” She sighs. “I’m starting to think I was wrong.”

“Rose, what happened when you were here before?”

She tenses up. You try to put a hand on her shoulder, but she jerks away. You wait, uncertain of what to do next.

“I picked the wrong weekend. Roxy was here.”

“Your mom.”

“She’s not my mother, Jade.” Rose sighs. “And I’m not hers. And that’s all there is to it.”

“I wondered why you were avoiding her.”

“Yes, well, now you know.”

You cautiously try to hug her. This time she lets you, and you feel the tension slowly drain out of her muscles as you hold her.

You feel like you should say something, but you’re not really sure how, not even sure what you should say, really. But right now you’re curled up with her under warm covers, listening to the tick-tick-tick of the snow falling outside, and you wonder if maybe that’s enough for now.

She’s almost asleep now, head scrunched up under your chin, breathing softly. “Not everyone needs a mother,” you murmur, as quietly as you can, in case she actually is asleep. She stirs a little bit. “But I think you might need a sister. And I bet Roxy does too.”

Rose reaches out and bats you gently on the ear, and you grab her hand, holding it still, until the both of you drift off into sleep.


End file.
